Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

moss

2897 posts

Re: Ritual Landscapes

Oct 09, 2005, 10:10

I probably don't believe in ritualised landscapes, ancestral yes, they build up over time. What I do think though is that we forget that these people had language and needed to narrate the story of their lives, and the expression of ritual/religion is bound up in the landscape. To go back to basics, to survive we must know our environment - forget modern day counterparts we live in a kaleidoscope of fast images our senses are so blunted as to be almost non existent. They had to live and survive, and probably most important of all create a view of their world. The natural world would have created the words to explain hills, rivers rocks, animals etc., from there we take "mother earth" hills that form breasts, our eyes see shapes and we process them logically, this progression is fluid it takes different forms. Religion is always fluid, ritual builds up over time and the reason why it is there is forgotten - stone circles are put up in imitation of others with no understanding of the reason why, and probably also in rockart. But I reckon the landscape would always have been important it centered the world in which you lived, it had to be named when you travelled, and neolithic people definitely travelled, it may not have been ritualised but it was given shape and form in words and therefore is part of the narrative or story...

In reply to:
Re: Ritual Landscapes (FourWinds)

Replies:
Re: Ritual Landscapes (BrigantesNation)
Re: Ritual Landscapes (moss)

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